Hitherto, automated teller machines have been disposed with a safe provided with plural banknote storage boxes, with an upper banknote mechanism including a banknote pay-in/pay-out port provided over the safe, capable of moving banknotes in the front-rear direction and taking out or storing the banknotes.
Automated teller machines are also provided with a conveying section within the upper banknote mechanism (also referred to below as an in-mechanism conveying section), and a conveying path (also referred to below as an in-mechanism banknote conveying path) is formed by the in-machine conveying section to convey the banknotes and to change the conveying direction of banknotes in the upper banknote mechanism as appropriate.
Automated teller machines are also provided with a conveying section within the safe (also referred to below as an in-safe conveying section), and a conveying path (also referred to below as an in-safe banknote conveying path) is formed by the in-safe conveying section to convey the banknotes and to change the conveying direction of banknotes in the safe as appropriate.
Moreover automated teller machines are also provided with a handover section, in a hole that pierces the ceiling plate of the safe, and the handover section forms a handover path for conveying banknotes such that the banknotes are passed over from the in-mechanism banknote conveying path to the in-safe banknote conveying path, or from the in-safe banknote conveying path to the in-mechanism banknote conveying path.
In automated teller machines, the lower end of the handover path is connected to the in-safe banknote conveying path within the safe, and the upper end of the handover path is detachably connected to the in-mechanism banknote conveying path as appropriate.
Namely, in an automated teller machine, the in-mechanism banknote conveying path is separated from the upper end of the handover path when the upper banknote mechanism is removed for maintenance or the like, however the in-mechanism banknote conveying path is connected to the upper end of the handover path when the upper banknote mechanism is stowed.
Thus in an automated teller machine, in the stowed state of the upper banknote mechanism, banknotes inserted through the pay-in/pay-out port are conveyed along the in-mechanism banknote conveying path in the upper banknote mechanism, then passed to the in-safe banknote conveying path in the safe via the handover path, and then conveyed along the in-safe banknote conveying path in the safe to the plural banknote storage boxes where the banknotes are then stored.
In an stowed state of an upper banknote mechanism in an automated teller machine, banknotes fed out from the plural banknote storage boxes are conveyed along the in-safe banknote conveying path in the safe, then passed to the in-mechanism banknote conveying path in the upper banknote mechanism via the handover path, and then conveyed along the in-mechanism banknote conveying path in the upper banknote mechanism to the pay-in/pay-out port where the banknotes are handed over to a customer (see, for example, page 4 to page 8, FIG. 3, and FIG. 5 to FIG. 13 of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-205252).